Always Accurate; Never Biased

I have been on a roll for weeks. God has been helping me break strongholds that used to drive me nuts. I had a lot of lingering tasks I could not seem to get done, and they keep falling before me.

Yesterday I installed a new moonroof motor in the SUV I inherited. This was a real problem. I need to go to Miami to get junk out of a house I own, so it can be sold. I don’t want to drive my pickup. Water was coming into the SUV because the moonroof drain holes got stopped up, and it killed the slide motor. In order to unplug the holes, I had to open the roof, so I needed the motor to work. I couldn’t drive the SUV to Miami with plugged drain holes. In order to go to Miami, I had to install the new motor.

The installation was a pain, but being me, I had all the tools I needed, and the most important tool was my knowledge of the supernatural. I prayed and spoke God’s help to myself.

I also got new insurance for a house I’m selling. I applied for an online account so I can pay my corporation’s taxes using my computer. I consulted with my realtor and chose a listing price for another house I’m selling. I established contact with a difficult condominium association which has apparently screwed my account up again, and I got them to commit to working it out with me. Things are moving right along.

I used to think worry was an important motivator. That’s true, IF you can’t get joy. Joy is the motivator you want. Worry is a stick; joy is a carrot. Joy is painless. It’s pleasant. It doesn’t give you ulcers, high blood pressure, strokes, gallstones, heart attacks, constipation, insomnia, obesity, or teeth that are worn out because you grind them at night.

The world is full of options. There are options that are available to God’s children, and there are inferior options for the carnal. Joy is for God’s children. If you can’t get God’s joy, you better get worry or some other source of drive, because if you don’t, you may fall way behind on your responsibilities.

God has been filling me with joy lately, and as the Bible says, the joy of the Lord is our strength. It’s not just a flowery saying that looks good on a greeting card. The joy of the Lord IS strength. It will help you get things done.

I’ve noticed that there are things that dull my joy. One of them is looking at the news. A while back, God told me to quit doing it. I canceled the newspapers my dad subscribed to, and I quit looking at news sites. I still see some stuff when I got to Yahoo to check a throwaway email account, however. I shouldn’t look at it. I need to be serious about it. When I look at the articles, I feel my joy slipping away, and I feel discouraged. The world is disgusting; it’s full of morbid tendencies. The world is failing, like a cancer patient, and when I read about it, I get caught up in the despair.

Generally, you go to a person’s side when he’s dying, and you sit it out. When a person is dying from a self-inflicted problem, and he refuses to change, it’s different. You shouldn’t take part in it. The world is going to succeed in destroying itself. I need to limit my participation in that.

I don’t actually need to read the news. I’m not endorsing ignorance, but right now, the news does me much more harm than good, and let’s face it: I am not going to change the world, or learn anything that will help me or those I love, by reading the news. God guides me every day. He’s not going to let me walk off a cliff just because I ignore the hysterical, biased squawking on Fox and CNN.

God keeps showing me how poisonous unequal yokings are. My dad, my worst unequal yoking, was a terrible weight to me until about two months before he died. He made me miserable for much of my life. Even though he changed tremendously shortly before he died, I am still recovering from the effects of my dealings with the pre-transformation Dad. I’m like a plant that was hidden in a closet; now I’m in the sun, and I’m growing and thriving.

When I was a kid, my sister and I used to push my mother to divorce my dad, and we were correct. He was that toxic. God supports marriage, and he hates divorce, but he permits divorce based on infidelity (and probably other things, under the new covenant), and my dad was unfaithful. We should have cut him loose and moved on. When I was older and had a choice, I chose to stay close to him and try to restore our relationship, and when I did that, I sentenced myself to years of needless conflict and waste.

You would think that when I turned back to God, over 10 years ago, he would have told me to dump my dad and make new connections. He did not. He was very clear. I believe I was sentenced to stick with my dad for a while, so I would get a bellyful and learn to hate unequal yokings. It worked. I absolutely hate them, and I will never permit myself to have another one.

When I sit and read news stories, I yoke myself with the secular world. I concern myself with problems that don’t apply to me. It does not matter what happens to the world; I am not part of it, so I will be fine. God has said, “A thousand shall fall at thy side and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.” He has also said, “Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge–even the most high–thy habitation, there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.”

You know what? Fox and CNN may be your news, but my newspaper is the word of God. I have a different source of news, and my news is different. Now I see why God doesn’t want me to read the news. It’s as if I were studying to be a pharmacist but instead of pharmacy classes, I went to history classes. It’s not the correct input for people on my path, with my future.

It’s crucial to know and accept your place in life, and your path. You can’t look at what other people are doing and insist that you be allowed to do the same.

On a related note, I watched a neat Derek Prince video the other day, about the gifts of the Spirit. The Bible makes it clear that we are expected to prophesy; it’s a universal gift, and we are told to “covet” it. It also lists interpretation of tongues as a gift. Prince led a group of people in prophecy and interpretation, and I started trying to do what they did.

It appears to work. My only concern is that the messages I’ve delivered seem to have very little critical content. The main criticism is this: he says I have to listen. If I am correct, he says my enemies will be cut down before me like wheat before a scythe. He says he will be with me forever. He says many others have come before him, but he is the only true God.

I wondered who he was talking about when me said others had come before him. He said that over and over. In the case of the Jews, he could be talking about the many false messiahs, such as Moses of Crete or Menachem Schneerson, a former Lubavitcher Rebbe who, though he is dead, is worshiped by many people. There was also a pretender named Jesus Bar-Kochba.

It’s interesting to note that Jews who worship Schneerson, who, by their own criteria, can’t be the Messiah, are still considered Jews. If you worship Jesus, you’re out. I wonder if anyone has considered the seeming hypocrisy.

I’m not Jewish. I never thought any Jewish pretender was divine, so if God talks of others who came before him, he can’t be talking about Jewish false messiahs. On the other hand, I have looked to certain human beings to teach me and save me.

When I was in high school, I used to read philosophy books and self-help books. I read people like Krishnamurti and Kierkegaard. I even read Fritz Perls. He was an old pervert who founded a school of psychology called gestalt. Later in life, I found a guy named Wayne Dyer, who taught a very effective (short-term) method of defeating depression. When you defeat depression, joy rebounds in you, and you can get things done. It changed my life.

I was given an anti-depressant when I was at Columbia University, and I had a psychiatrist. Didn’t help in the slightest. Complete waste of time. My psychiatrist, Dr. Anderson, was possibly the worst messiah of all. He just sat in a chair and asked me questions.

I’ve put my faith in a lot of people who were wrong. Some were able to help me dramatically for a short time, but they always failed in the end. Their teachings were carnal, which means they were divorced from the Holy Spirit and Jesus. They were secular false messiahs.

I even turned myself into a messiah. I thought self-esteem and optimism, which I generated, could save me. Big mistake.

Because I was ignorant about God, I thought depression and low self-esteem were my fundamental problems. I was depressed for most of the first 30 years of my life, and I also suffered depression when I went to graduate school in physics. I don’t get depression any more. It’s actually somewhat difficult to remember what it was like, and that’s fine with me. It just does not happen. I can have a couple of days during which I feel down, but that’s it. God doesn’t cure depression temporarily; he annihilates it and keeps it off of you permanently. It’s one of the benefits of prayer in tongues.

I believe my depression was a demon, or more than one demons. Whatever it was, it could only be removed by God’s power.

I hope I’m hearing from God correctly. I intend to keep trying. God has made it clear that we are expected to prophesy, and I want to do everything I’m supposed to do.

Jesus said this:

And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?

Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?

I don’t believe God will allow me to be deceived if I ask for things he has told me I’m supposed to have. If he will, what hope is there for us?

The things I hear when I try to interpret and prophesy are far better than anything I would have expected God to give me, so I certainly hope they’re coming from God and not me.

We have to have God’s guidance. If he doesn’t inform us, we will walk into one defeat after another. The Bible isn’t enough. The Bible won’t tell you to avoid an airline flight that’s going to crash. It won’t tell you your neighbor is about to go on a shooting rampage. The Bible is great when it comes to generalities, but for specific, real-time information, you have to have the Holy Spirit.

Pre-Christian Jews inquired of God all the time, and he answered. The Holy Spirit spoke to Christians in the New Testament all the time. It’s abnormal to live without God’s timely, specific counsel, yet somehow, we think anyone who claims to hear from God is a nut and a heretic.

I think I’m going to be living in Tennessee at some point in 2020. I believe that will be my last move. I’ll say these things publicly, and we’ll see how they pan out. I think I’ll be looking for properties in earnest by the end of this year. I refuse to borrow (carnal and not the way you behave when you’re the head), so maybe that means all of my surplus property will be sold by then.

Many children of God are being moved to rural areas where they will live in greater safety and be less unequally yoked. On the other hand, most Christians I know don’t hear from God, and they plan to stay where they are. I can’t help them. I can tell them what I know, and after that, the burden is on them.

I think my black friends are in greater trouble than the others. They have been brainwashed to think they have to help “the community” at the expense of everything else. They think they have to live in urban black neighborhoods and hold onto black friends and relatives who pretend to be Christians yet are steeped in sin.

Their neighborhoods are going nowhere. They will not be fixed. They will continue to rot. Staying there is disobedient, and when bad times come, God’s help will be limited, because they should have known better than to stay.

White neighborhoods full of ungodly people are headed for trouble, and black neighborhoods are even worse off. That’s just how it is. As Lot’s wife could tell you, God won’t reward anyone for stubbornness. When he says “leave,” you have to leave.

I shudder when I consider the fate of Jews who live in or near big urban centers. Blacks and Hispanics, who tend to concentrate in cities, have major problems with anti-Semitism, and before long, they will be free to act on their urges. Muslims also accumulate in cities.

The Bible talks about enemies overrunning Israel and raping the women. When people from a certain area are dispersed, they tend to bring their curses with them to their new countries. It may be that many Jews in America will share the problems Israel faces. After all, Israel is a people, not a place.

Today I have to fix a hedge and work on state taxes. I should also put new gage wheels on the deck of my diesel mower. They just arrived. I might also add some stones to an area I mulched last week. Rain is disturbing the mulch.

Am I getting the property ready to live in or to sell? Looks like both. I hope so. As much as I love it here, I can’t stop thinking about Appalachia.

With an Anti-Semitic Pastor

A while back, I wrote about a Youtuber who calls himself ChuckE2009. He’s an interesting guy. He’s a young man who lives in Texas. He went to welding school, and then he got himself a farm. He makes very useful and entertaining videos about tools and farming.

He got in trouble recently by posting political videos. At first, he stood up for old-fashioned values, and that was nice. Later, he started talking about “precious European blood.” He expressed concern about the fact that white Caucasians were being displaced in America. A lot of people got off the ChuckE2009 bus at that point. Since then, people have been posting videos excoriating him and calling him a racist. To be fair to his critics, it looks like they’re right. He seems to believe that Caucasians of European descent are under attack, and although I haven’t seen him advocate violence, he clearly believes a response is in order.

It is certainly true that white people are under attack. It’s a sick new phenomenon. A big university had an event where white people were told to stay home, and they were clearly intimidated. A Jewish professor got in trouble for going to work. Leftists sided against him. When things like this happen in America, it’s obvious that white people are besieged. That, however, doesn’t mean some kind of carnal response is appropriate. It’s a manifestation of a supernatural movement, and exposure and prayer are the correct reactions.

The word “racist” is poorly defined. Generally, people define it so they can use it to condemn people they dislike or excuse people they favor. Leftists have lowered the bar so much, it’s no longer possible to be anything but a racist under their definition, unless you’re non-white. If you’re non-white, you can’t be a racist at all. A non-white person who murders white people while wearing a shirt that says, “I hate white people and believe they are inferior” is not racist, under the left’s criteria. This is literally true.

On the other side of the spectrum, there are people who say you’re not a racist as long as you’re nice to people of other races. You can join a Nazi group and support anti-non-white causes, but as long as you hold the door for black ladies at the mall, you’re okay.

Here is one type of racism: you condemn individuals without investigation, simply because they belong to certain groups. It’s not racist to choose not to live in a black neighborhood because you’re afraid of crime. That’s common sense, and even black people agree that black neighborhoods are dangerous for non-blacks. It’s racist, however, to assume your neighbor–an individual you have not evaluated–has a criminal mindset because he’s black.

Another type of bigotry is genocidal in nature. It involves slandering a group and refusing to give that group a hearing. For example, if you think Jews cause all the world’s problems, which is clearly far from true, you’re a racist. One of my best friends from high school told me black people were a cancer, and he said they should be taken out to sea and drowned. That’s about as racist as you can get. Obviously, I do not talk to this person now.

It’s wrong to say that every negative thought or feeling about people who are different is evil. For example, feeling nervous around crowds of rowdy members of another group which is known for violence toward whites doesn’t make you a racist. It’s a reasonable response to observed behavior. Believing that some racial groups have higher IQ’s is not racist. In fact, leftist scientists believe this, because it’s true. They are not happy about it, and they are very determined to prove that it’s not rooted in genetics. It surprised me to find out that it was true. I don’t know the reason for the disparity, but it definitely exists, and believing it exists isn’t racism. Denying it would be irrational.

It sure seems to me that ChuckE2009 is a racist. He seems to believe that Europeans are the source of all or most progress and harmony in the world. He appears to be against interracial marriage, too, and that suggests that he has problems with a person’s non-white status, per se, not just behaviors and attitudes that might be expected to go along with it. If you’re against all interracial marriage, you must be a racist, because you don’t make exceptions for the many excellent non-white marriage candidates everyone with any common sense knows are out there.

It’s easy for white people who don’t do their homework to get the idea that civilization was created by Europeans, but it’s not quite true. While Northern Europeans were eating each other and worshiping trees, other peoples were civilizing their parts of the world. Obvious examples are the Jews, various Asians, and the Indians of Central and South America. Apart from that, the Nazis and Soviets prove that blue-eyed white people can do a lot of damage.

I don’t deny that American and European culture are, objectively, superior to most others, but that has more to do with God’s favor than white blood.

When you watch ChuckE’s videos, you can see that he’s a Christian. He mentions religion a lot, and he’s upset about sexual sin and abortion.

When I became aware of his issues, I started wondering how he got where he is, and an obvious answer suggested itself: he had to be in the hands of a church that denied the Holy Spirit. Guess what? I was right. He recently posted a video that consisted mostly of footage from a church’s channel. The church’s pastor is one Steven Anderson, and he is against speaking in tongues.

Didn’t take long to figure that out. Churches that don’t deny the Holy Spirit are notable for their racial tolerance and favorable attitude toward interracial marriage, and ChuckE’s sentiments didn’t fit the profile.

Sanderson is a rabid anti-Semite. He has sermons in which he talks about “the real Jews.” Whenever you hear the phrase “the real Jews,” you know you’re about to hear anti-Semitic slander. He has two sermons titled, “The Jews and Their Lies.” He denies that the Holocaust happened. Charismatics, whatever our faults may be, are horrified by this kind of drivel.

ChuckE’s experience shows what happens when churches reject the Holy Spirit. Doctrine goes haywire. Only the Holy Spirit can limit the craziness of the things the mind of man can believe.

I feel bad for this young man. His pastor is controlled by the spirit of Antichrist, and no one has introduced him to the Holy Spirit, so he has no defense.

It always bothers me when people reject the baptism with the Spirit and prayer in tongues, and ChuckE2009’s experience should help you understand why. It doesn’t matter how nice you are, how smart, or how fair. If you aren’t hearing from the Holy Spirit every day, you are never going to develop as a Christian, and you will always be ignorant and deceived. It won’t help you to read the Bible every day. Many of the greatest religious scholars have been wrong about everything that matters.

The Holy Spirit is not an option, like a convertible roof or alloy wheels. You have to have him. Saying the Holy Spirit is optional is like saying legs are optional.

I’ve been wondering if other Youtube tool guys felt the way ChuckE did. His best Youtube buddy, Stephen Cox, just put out a video in which he clears the air. He says he disagrees with ChuckE, but he still chooses to be his best friend. It appears that he made this choice because he felt that virtuous people don’t abandon their friends just because they have kooky beliefs. Quite honestly, he comes across as self-righteous about it, as though we should admire him.

What Cox says may sound nice, and he clearly has good intentions, but it’s ignorant. The truth is this: unequal yokings are poisonous. Jesus fully expects us to abandon our friends, along with everyone else who pulls us away from him, except for children and spouses. He said he came to pit people against each other.

Paul said a Christian should avoid people who claim to be brothers yet persist in certain behaviors. He said we should not even eat with one who “is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner.” When you start ranting about the Jewish Problem and the importance of European blood, you become a reviler. No question about it.

I would pray for ChuckE; in fact, I do. But I wouldn’t continue to associate with such a person. It’s too much. You shouldn’t have someone like that around your wife and kids. You shouldn’t let people see you with him. It will lend support to what he says.

ChuckE is a Christian, supposedly, and he supports anti-Semitic propaganda. Stephen Cox says he’s a Christian, but he doesn’t know he shouldn’t run around with anti-Semites. It’s remarkable what you can believe and still think you’re on board with God.

It’s amazing that a twisted individual like Steven Anderson could succeed as a pastor in America. His website features a photo of him surrounded by dozens of happy followers. They’re not ashamed to be seen with him. Where do people that deceived come from?

I decided to unsubscribe from ChuckE’s channel. It means nearly nothing; no one knew I had subscribed to him, and if they had, it wouldn’t have mattered. I just felt like disconnecting in whatever way I could. I don’t want to see his updates filling my screen when I sit down to relax with tool videos.

I am against the kook right. I am against the people who blindly defend people like Breitbart and Coulter. Andrew Breitbart was a snake who would have done anything for fame, and Ann Coulter has mental issues. I don’t believe in forming militias and daring the FBI to attack. I don’t believe in antagonizing the police on camera and posting the videos on the Internet. I want no part of violent rallies. Conservatives need to disclaim the small, nutty fringe that feeds the left’s straw man fantasies.

I remember how nuts came to my blog and ranted when I criticized pre-alt-right wackos. I was disloyal! I was a traitor! I’m so glad I said what I did. I would hate to be a friend of the kind of people who insulted me. It never bothered me in the slightest. I’m glad they don’t like me. I wouldn’t want them to. It would embarrass me. I hope I still offend them. I hope they change, but unless they do, I don’t want them on my side.

Conservatism is great, and God is conservative, but Christianity is the only answer to man’s problems. Conservatism is a by-product. When you pursue conservatism itself and ignore the Holy Spirit, you waste your time and make your problems worse. That’s true of any good thing. It’s true of wealth. It’s true of power. They’re not blessings unless they come from obeying the Holy Spirit. The essence of carnality is to pursue superficial blessings without pursuing the kingdom of heaven and God’s righteousness.

It seems like the world is being centrifuged rapidly, to separate a tiny Holy-Spirit-aware remnant from everyone else. The more time passes, the lonelier God’s true children will get. Even nominal Christians are generally against them, and the situation will only get worse.

You Can do a Lot with a Dirt Bike Engine Strapped to Your Back

Today has been wonderful.

My new leaf blower arrived. Finally, I know what a real leaf blower is like.

I got a handheld Husqvarna when I lived in Miami, and it was okay for blowing stuff off the porch, but it wasn’t right for a farm, so when I moved to Ocala, I got what I thought was a serious blower: a 56-volt Ego from Home Depot. The specs were right up there with their big gas jobs, and I wanted to be spared the aggravation of dealing with yet another carburetor choked by ethanol-polluted gas.

I tried to blow my oak leaves with the Ego, and the leaves actually dropped closer to the ground, as if to hang on, when the air hit them. I concluded that my leaves were impervious to blowing. After all, I was using what was supposedly a very strong blower, and the leaves went nowhere.

Last week, I ordered an Echo that puts out about 1100 CFM at over 200 mph. The Ego comes in at 600 CFM and 145 mph. Anyway, I put the Echo together and fired it up, and just as one Internet reviewer said, it was strong enough to dig holes in the yard. It ripped up thick mats of half-composted leaves and blew them through the air. It was mesmerizing. I couldn’t put it down.

It didn’t remove every leaf, but it probably got 80% of them. I ended up with a huge pile in my driveway. It was so big, I quit trying to push the leaves. I got the utility cart and a snow shovel and filled the dump bed. I made several trips into the woods and dumped the leaves there. Beautiful.

In that photo, you can see my little freshly trimmed hedges. They look nearly normal now.

My yard has been ravaged by dead leaves I couldn’t move (without taking a rake and a shovel to the whole place), but now the grass has room to grow, so I expect to see some green soon. I’ve been uncovering areas using a harrow and a leaf sweeper, and they’re already coming back, so I expect the blower-cleared areas to do the same. In any event, the leaves won’t be a problem any more.

The blower is so strong, you can move limbs with it. You have to love that. I was blowing little branches all over the place.

My leaf problem has been a big weight on my back. It was a real stronghold. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get anywhere. Then I had some success with a harrow and yard sweeper, and now I have a blower that makes using the sweeper unnecessary. It may seem strange to see someone so relieved about a yard problem, but I feel like I just got released from prison.

I got that done, and I also sprayed a bunch of Spanish moss with a solution of baking soda, water, and Dawn. I put it in the pressure washer and let fly. I also hosed some algae on my chimney. Now we’ll see if it works. My cattle tenant says copper sulfate will do the trick, so I’ll try that if the baking soda fails.

My last achievement: I took care of some business involving the title of a house I’m selling.

I’m very, very happy. I feel like I’m a Champagne bottle and God just pulled out the cork.

Tomorrow I hope to get my moonroof fixed. God is very kind, and I think he will continue to help me.

Pour it On; I Can’t Get Enough

One of the strange things about being an effective Christian is that you have to love being told you’re wrong. You have to prize criticism. If you look for it, you can see this idea throughout the Bible. For example, Psalm 141 says, “Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head.”

Here on the demon-infested earth, we are taught to deny blame. Worse, we are taught to falsely accuse those who bring our faults to our attention. We learn to avoid accepting blame and taking responsibility. By dodging and lying, we avoid the blessing of improvement.

Jesus and the other martyrs were killed partly because they were critical. Leftist Christians like to portray Jesus as a Pillsbury Doughboy sort of person who went through life hugging people and giggling, but in reality, he was very critical and extremely rude. He knew what was wrong with us, and he wanted us to be saved from our faults, so he told us the unsweetened truth. Those who accepted his remarks were saved. Many or all of the rest continued to rot on earth and then ended up in hell.

When you develop a real prayer life, you will hear from God, and very often, what he says will be criticism. You have to take it the right way. When God criticizes you, it’s as if he were shoveling rubies into your pockets. He is giving you keys that unlock the doors that keep you undeveloped and weak.

You can’t say, “I can’t believe this. I’ve been at this so long, and I’ve been so patient, and now you’re telling me I’m still a mess.” That’s self-pity, and self-pity is a form of pride. God fights the proud; the Bible says so. Do you want God himself to fight with you? You’re guaranteed to lose. You have to say, “Thank you for showing me the way out!”

Yesterday I watched a Derek Prince video, and he talked about carnality. If I recall correctly, he connected it with a desire to be independent of God.

I didn’t think much about what he said when I heard it. I agreed with it, and I figured I was not in deep trouble. Last night I woke up and thought about it more, and I realized the desire to be free of God was in me. It shocked me.

Of course, I was hearing from God. I am not smart enough or good enough to figure things like this out without help.

The desire to be free of God is a characteristic of fallen angels and demons. Psalm 2 says this about them and their children:

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying,

Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.

He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.

Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.

I don’t want God to vex me or speak to me in wrath.

People who say they have visited hell commonly say the presence of God is not there. This is supposed to be one of the worst things about hell; it’s probably what makes hell what it is. Every good thing streams from God, so if he’s not around, life is agony and constant humiliation. I know this, but I have still had a desire to live in a world where I could lead a “normal” life without so many restrictions and without putting in so much work in prayer and so on. I have desired to be close to God, but at the same time, part of me missed the days of delusion in which I tried to get by on my own, without choosing God’s side and setting myself up as a target for Satan.

I knew there was no such thing as a “normal” world where people lived “normal” lives, but the concept still sounded good to me.

The desire to be free from the light burden and easy yoke of the Spirit-led life is related to the spirit of antichrist. As Prince taught, “anti” means “against,” but it also means, “instead of.” The Antichrist–the man–won’t just be against Christ. He’ll be a substitute Christ. He’ll preach what I call “the alternative righteousness.”

God is both love and judgment. The Antichrist will ignore judgment and push false love. He’ll tell us we have to be really nice to each other. He’ll say this is all that matters. He’ll say homosexuality and other forms of sexual sin are just fine, as long as we’re nice. He’ll say pride is fine, as long as we’re nice. The Bible says we should be kind, but it also says God himself puts people in hell, which he created, for disobedience. The Antichrist will teach that hell doesn’t exist, and he’ll tell us we can make the earth our heaven.

I always talk about the alternative righteousness, but I didn’t fully understand what it was until a few days ago.

When Jesus walked the earth, many of his followers expected him to put on a crown and kill the Romans. They thought he would lift Israel up above its enemies. In other words, they expected a political leader. He told them they were wrong, but they didn’t understand. He said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” He also said, “My kingdom is within you.” He was not a political agitator. He never complained about the Roman occupation, and he even advised his followers to pay taxes.

The Antichrist will be the kind of leader the Jews of Jesus’ time were hoping for. He will be very political. He will be a military leader. He will go after Christians and Jews. He will convince people he can create a false Eden here on earth.

He will be politically correct. There is more to that ugly phrase than we understand. “Political correctness” is synonymous with “alternative righteousness.”

We have strange ideas about righteousness. We think it means you’re supposed to walk around in a robe and be peaceful and effeminate, more or less. A righteous man, to us, is an asexual zealot who walks around staring up to heaven all day. That’s not righteousness. The word “righteous” simply means “correct.” When the Bible says God is righteous, it’s saying God is right about everything.

Correctness is righteousness, so political correctness is political righteousness. “Political” is nearly synonymous with “carnal.”

There have always been two kingdoms on earth: the political kingdom, and the kingdom of heaven. God discouraged the Jews from choosing a king, because he wanted them to be ruled through the kingdom of heaven, guided by priests and prophets. They rejected his advice and chose the curse of politics. They wanted a secular–carnal–leader.

The secular way is the carnal way. It means living without God’s counsel and commands. It means disobedience to God.

What does “carnal” mean? It means “of the flesh.” Animals are carnal. They can’t understand the things of God. They do their best with their natural abilities. When we choose carnal, political solutions, we become like animals. What does the King James Version call animals? “Beasts.”

Political correctness is carnal, and it’s the way of the Beast.

A few years back, God startled me by telling me I had a spirit of antichrist, so I fought it from time to time. I understood various aspects of it, but I don’t think I understood all of it. Now I see that wishing the universe were different and that we could live outside of the Christian paradigm is an antichristian mindset. It opens doors to spirits that hate God.

If anyone ever wishes to be free from the “burdens” of godly life, it has to be because he has forgotten how good that life is–how good and pleasing God is–and how horrible the alternative is.

Now that I have this revelation, I have something new to repent of, and that’s a tremendous gift. It’s always a relief to find out I’m doing something wrong, because it means there is a way to fix things and improve my situation.

The earth isn’t going to be fixed. Christians who push for that need to pray for correction. The Bible makes it very clear that we are going to lose in the short term. It also makes it clear that our path is not political. We are not going to repair the world by convincing everyone we’re nice, winning their hearts, and electing Christian governments. We are going to be persecuted and murdered, and weak Christians will participate in it. We will be demonized, and people who harm us will think they’re doing good deeds.

You can be repaired. The world can’t. Not until Jesus returns, kills his enemies, and rebuilds the planet.

I’m excited about the correction I received. I know my life will be better in the future because of it. I can’t permit myself to fantasize about a world where I can live “normally.” It gives the spirit of antichrist, which hates me, a foothold.

Today I prayed for God to make me more dependent on him. More, not less.

Things are still going well here. I’m tearing this place up. Yesterday was a slow day for home maintenance, but I mopped the back porch with pool chlorine nonetheless. I backwashed and shocked the pool and identified and bought a chemical for killing Spanish moss. I got keys made for my utility cart. I also got a ton of business matters fixed.

The cheap moss-killing chemical is baking soda. They say it really works. I plan to load it in the pressure washer and spray it on the trees near the house. It would be a dream come true to see that nasty stuff dry up and drop. I’m wondering if it will have any effect on algae. Hmm…a website says it kills algae in lawns. I may have a new treatment for my roof.

Today my new leaf blower arrived. It will be like strapping myself to an engine from an F15. Can’t wait to blow leaves and other junk across the farm. I’ve already done some work today, even though I feel like I’ve barely started. I mopped the back porch with pool chlorine again, before breakfast! It wasn’t clean enough to suit me, but before I’m done, it will be. I’ll pressure-wash it if I have to.

I guess I’ll mix the baking soda with Dawn, to make it stick and penetrate. I bought Simple Green for the first time in my life, and I tried using it in the pressure washer, but it seems weak and utterly useless. Hard to believe it’s this overrated. It doesn’t seem to do anything well.

The motor for my car’s moonroof arrived. I was dreading installing it, because of the hot weather. Even in the garage, it’s hot. Then I remembered that the car had an air conditioner. I can park in the shade and run the AC while I work. Not sure why this wasn’t obvious to me.

My advice is to keep asking for correction, because you’re even more wrong than you thought. Be glad you’re wrong, because if you were doing everything right, and your life was as it is now, you would have nothing better to look forward to.

Problems Dissolve Before Wave of Solutions

I’ve had another exciting two days.

The house I live in is wonderful, and the previous owners did a great job taking care of it. Unfortunately, they made a lot of bad landscaping choices. One example was the choice to leave a large oak tree standing 10 feet in front of the house. At some point, they cut it, and they didn’t have the stump ground. When I arrived here, I had a two-foot-wide stump taking up valuable landscaping space, and it had octopus-like roots extending in several directions.

I have fiddled with the stump for quite a while. I put drilled holes in it and filled them with saltpeter. That softened the wood so it was like a very tough cork. It didn’t get rid of the stump, however. Saltpeter is supposed to cause stumps to rot very quickly. Barring that, it’s supposed to make them very flammable, so you can apply kerosene, set them alight, and watch while they burn down into the ground. I didn’t get those results.

The saltpeter didn’t do everything it should have, but it made the stump vulnerable to conventional attack, so yesterday and the day before, I took a sawzall to it. I had come to understand that a lithium sawzall was a phenomenal landscaping tool. I cut a bunch of roots, and then yesterday, I got out a 4-foot prybar and a maul, and I went to town on the stump.

I would estimate that I worked an hour, spread out over two days. I tore out what must have been 150 pounds of oak, in big chunks. It was fantastic. Cutting and removing the roots gave me access to the stump itself, and it surrendered in a short time.

The stump is now gone. I loaded it in my cart and dumped the bits in the woods. Now I have an area where I can plant another peach tree. I don’t know if my first peach tree needs a pollination partner, but I would like to have two varieties, in case I don’t like the one I already have.

I also fixed the ground under the eave of my workshop. For some inexplicable reason, there is no gutter on the roof, so rainwater runs straight off the roof and down onto the lawn, digging a trench in the ground and splashing dirt onto the workshop porch. I learned about the virtues of melaleuca mulch this week, and I picked up 18 bags. I used several of them to fill in the trench the rain dug. Now when the rain pours off the roof, it will land on a bed of what is supposed to be the most stubborn plant-based mulch on earth. Melaleuca mulch binds together after you put it in place, and it’s also heavy, so it won’t float or wash away.

I may put some sort of plants in the mulch. Not sure yet. I put raspberry plants there in 2017, and the rain obliterated them. Weeds seem to grow really well there, though.

I have another area where the old pine mulch was nearly gone, so I blasted it with glyphosate, hacked out a flowering bush I never liked, and dumped a thick blanket of melaleuca mulch on it. It looks much–or mulch–better now. I also installed a hummingbird feeder hanging from a brand-new shepherd’s hook.

I finished trimming my hedges today. Oops…that’s not true. I finished one more side of the house. But it’s a big percentage of the total hedge burden. I can’t say the hedges look neat now, but at least they look like someone tried to put them in order. That’s a gigantic improvement.

I vacuumed and brushed the pool and got some liquid chlorine. Tomorrow I’ll backwash it and shock it. The pool is still recovering from my recent gutter-cleaning adventure. Lots of roof grit and leaf compost dust went into the water. I was starting to get a little algae, so today I nipped that problem in the bud.

I trimmed a couple of trees today. I have a tree with hanging branches, like a willow, and they interfere when I try to mow. I used to put up with it, figuring I wasn’t supposed to cut the limbs. I assumed the droopy effect was one of the tree’s features. Today I thought about it, and I remembered that I own the house now. I don’t care how the person who planted the tree feels. I can do what I want. I hacked out the limbs that were in my way. Now the tree looks much better. I have another tree with limbs that touched the pool enclosure. It occurred to me that a mouse could climb the tree and walk out onto the enclosure, providing him with roof access. I don’t need that headache, so I cut the tree back just to be sure.

My blackberry and grape plants live in an area bordered by a ludicrous ornamental rail fence, and the fence is not sturdy. The rails have a tendency to pop out and fall. Today I took a long 1/4″ drill bit and drilled holes through the posts and rails, and then I used an impact driver to run long hex screws through them to hold them together. I intend to keep running screws until the rails quit flopping. It’s a great solution. It’s unobtrusive, and the whole job of installing a screw takes 30 seconds.

The blackberries are doing very, very well. The bugs here just don’t like them. Today I bought trellises for them. They will be installed tomorrow.

I ordered more batteries for my 18-volt Makita toys. I figure a total of 6 batteries will be enough to make it highly unlikely I’ll ever have to quit work because I’m out of juice. I considered buying no-name Chinese batteries, but there is some question as to how long they last, and you can find great deals on real Makitas on Ebay, so I didn’t take a chance.

I researched strawberries. Someone suggested I put strawberry plants in the planter that used to house the annoying pygmy date palm I dismembered. It’s a great idea, because the planter is by the pool, screened in. The squirrels won’t be able to get near it, but they WILL be able to hang on the screen and stare at the berries they will never get, and that serves them right.

I put glue rat traps in my storage room. I hear funny noises coming from that area at night. I think it’s just the air conditioning moving doors around, but why gamble? If it’s mice, they will soon come to realize the folly of their decision to trespass in my realm.

I wish the day were longer. I want to kill everything in the poolside planter and dump it in the woods.

Getting rid of the stump is a huge blessing. It was like a Satanic stronghold, right in front of my door. It was as if it were taunting me. When I first came here, it was like cast iron, and I saw no hope of removing it without paying someone. Now it’s out in the woods in pieces, and the front yard has lost a major eyesore.

I’m just getting started. I’m going to kill and remove my citrus, which is all mortally ill. I’m going to get my garage wired up for machine tools, and I’m going to move my lathe and mill up here. I’m going to get my truck painted. I’m going to get the driveway resurfaced. This place is going to look like a civilized human being lives here.

Every morning, I keep asking God to help me fix this place so people who look at it will know there is a God in Israel. Christians shouldn’t do everything in a half-assed way. People shouldn’t be able to point their fingers at us and say, “Look at the third-rate care their imaginary God takes of his children.” Our lives should be in order. We should be examples to everyone else.

My hot rod leaf blower arrives Wednesday, God willing. The crud that has been sitting on my driveway since I pressure-washed it is about to be blown halfway to the property line. The leaves that have suffocated my yard will be lucky if they land before they reach Orlando.

Things are good. God is faithful. Christianity works. Don’t give up.

Barriers to Property Sale Collapse

Last year in May, God gave me this phrase: “Extremely effective.” I took it to mean he was going to change me so I got things done faster. It sure looks like that was correct. I have been getting things done right and left since my dad died.

Today I got my cattle lease signed. I drew it up a few days ago. A local man is going to put about 18 cows on my property. They will keep the weeds down, produce lots of useful manure, and kill my property tax bill. They will also make the place look less like Edward Scissorhands’ dad’s winter home. When a man lives alone on a big property, the atmosphere can get creepy.

Today my tenant Homer showed up and worked on the fences. He says the cattle will be here next week. Probably. I put new locks on all the gates he will be using, and when he shows up next week, I will hand him a key.

Yesterday and today, I solved some problems with the title on a property I’m selling. The person my dad bought it from had some little problems, and they popped up when the title insurance people did a search. The first three issues were unpaid fines relating to very stupid and untrained dogs that didn’t behave. That was no problem. A phone call fixed it. The fourth problem was bigger, and it involved a law firm that deals with debt.

At first, I was told I couldn’t resolve anything without consent from the person who was named in the documents, but I knew better than that, being a lawyer and all. I pointed out that I could make an offer to pay without poking my nose into the particulars of the matter, and of course, the attorney was fine with that. He didn’t go into his unsavory line of work because he hates money. Payment is payment, regardless of the source. We worked it out, which really means I agreed to pay him whatever he wants. There is no way to get a reduction in the time I have available. I will be paying on Monday. As it turns out, I am in a situation that will allow me to get reimbursement without making demands or suing anyone (or getting permission), so I won’t be out any money. It will cost the dog owner some cash. Nothing I can do about that, and the truth is, I don’t care.

I am getting the property I live on under control, fast. I fixed all the hedges in front of the house this week, and I will be doing the rest of the house shortly. I put a peach tree in the hole where my lightning-blasted maple used to stand. I ordered some Tupi blackberry plants. These are great warm-climate plants with thorns. Maybe they’ll discourage squirrels. If you buy blackberries in a grocery store, chances are they’re Tupis. They’re big, and the flavor is good. I’m thinking I should sow some in my pasture, to crowd out and kill the disappointing native berries.

I got some info on mulch. It appears that the best possible mulch comes from obnoxious melaleuca trees. These things were brought to Florida from Australia. They’re like eucalyptus trees, sort of. They’re the trees we get tea tree oil from; there is no such thing as a tea tree. They have overrun a lot of South Florida and destroyed much of the awful Everglades (as if I care). The mulch repels bugs and lasts a long time, and killing melaleucas is a mitzvah, so it’s a win-win kind of thing. Melaleuca mulch isn’t available everywhere, which is amazing because it’s such a great idea, but my local Lowe’s happens to have it, so I plan to load up. Much of my mulch is worn out, and I think melaleuca is just the ticket to cover my weeds.

I got a new blade for my lithium Sawzall. This is important because I have a big stump in front of my house, and it has long roots. You should never use a chainsaw on roots, because dirt dulls a chainsaw instantly. A Sawzall is a great tool for cutting roots and branches, especially if it’s cordless. I picked a 9″ wood blade. I can’t wait to get rid of the roots around the stump. The core should come out with the tractor after that.

I found out which extension agent I need to talk to, concerning yard maintenance. I have given up on getting advice from other sources. Forums are useless. I need someone with deep local knowledge because the climate here is so weird. It’s not tropical, and it’s not temperate. We have monstrous weeds, plus gophers, armadillos, and horrible oak trees with destructive leaves. We also have thick algae here that grows on driveways and houses. I have to have information in order to deal with this mess. On Monday, I will hook up and dominate.

My car had a problem. I inherited my dad’s Ford Explorer. It has a moonroof, which is one of the dumbest features a car can have. It gives you all the maintenance problems of a convertible, with none of the style or fun. It amazes me that people like these things. Moonroofs have drain tubes that get plugged, and when they get plugged, water rises in your roof and kills your moonroof motor. In order to unclog the tubes, you have to open the moonroof, so basically, you have to replace the motor before you can clear the drains.

This week I spent a very hard day lowering the headliner in the car. I found the motor, and I have a new one on the way. It’s actually easier to replace the motor than the moonroof fuse. Ford used to put fuses in a convenient panel near the door, but now they hide the indoor fuse box under the dashboard. To get to it, you have to remove a trim panel, lie on your back in the foot well, and twist to your right. It took me over an hour just to find it, and I had directions. Actually changing a fuse would be so hard, it would be physically dangerous. I could tear a muscle. Unbelievably bad engineering.

In any case, the damage to the car was limited to a motor and some dampness on the carpet by the passenger seat, so I’m happy. I would have had to pay hundreds to get a mechanic to fix it.

It’s annoying that car makers don’t warn people about moonroof problems. When you buy a car, you know you have to change the fluids, buy tires, fix the brakes periodically, and get things lubed. You know you have to get front end alignments. No normally aware person will just assume there is an easily blocked tube in the moonroof, which has to be blown out periodically with compressed air. People find out about it after their cars start to smell and their moonroofs stop working.

Some owners have problems much worse than mine. The gaskets around the rear moonroofs go bad, and then water pours into the well where the spare tire sits, filling it to the brim and taking out a stereo speaker in the process. The tire well doesn’t have a drain in it. Nice work, Ford. Good thinking.

I wish I could have my moonroof welded shut. It’s an idiotic product. People who like moonroofs must not know what real convertibles are like.

I’m pretty sure I disposed of some other lingering problems this week, but I can’t think of them offhand.

I hate to say it, but life without my dad is a thousand times better than life with him. Things are going better for me because he’s gone.

I have two dads to consider: the old one, and the new one who appeared 7 weeks before he died. I am still recovering from the damage the old one did, even as I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the new one. He was full of love and generosity. He blessed me every time I saw him. Unfortunately, he was just too ill to continue living.

I love my dad very much, and I can’t wait to be with him again, but that’s the new dad. The old dad was a radioactive weight that held me down.

It’s very odd, being glad to be rid of one version of my dad while missing and loving another version.

Every day, I pray for God to keep killing my old self and giving life and dominance to my new self. I learned that from watching God work on my dad.

I think I’ll get the Sawzall out before it gets completely dark.

Get the unequal yokings out of your life, give yourself completely to God, beg God for correction every day, and worship him physically when you talk to him. Don’t just sit there. Lift your hands and tell him you’re worshiping him. He expects you to make physical gestures of worship, it and pays off.

God will give you peace and victory, but you have to do things his way. Until you give in–as long as you insist on making God work within your own unfortunate version of Christianity–you won’t know how beautiful life can be.

Diabolical Leaves Yield to God’s Favor

God keeps helping me break through barriers.

Today I broke the oak leaf barrier.

My property contains thousands of useless oak trees. They’re not white oaks, red oaks, black oaks, or chestnut oaks; those species are useful. They’re live oaks and various scrubby, crappy oaks which produce bad lumber and drop horrible leaves that kill everything they land on.

Ever since I moved here, I’ve been trying to get rid of oak leaves. I bought a leaf blower, and when I aimed it at the leaves, they actually moved closer to the ground. They refused to be blown away. I bought a mulching kit for my 60″ mower deck, and the leaves ignored it. I bought a 50″ sweeper, and it only removed loose leaves. Leaves that were farther down in the crud column refused to move. Also, Spanish moss kept wrapping around the sweeper’s axles and immobilizing them.

Recently, I bought a harrow. This is a heavy steel thing you drag. It’s like a net made of 3/8″ steel rod, with tines protruding downward from it. It loosened leaves so the sweeper would actually pick them up.

This was a big development. It meant I had some hope of getting rid of packed-down leaves, as long as I was willing to stop the sweeper several times an hour and pull Spanish moss off the axles with pliers.

Today I ran the harrow and sweeper, and then I decided to get out one of my leaf blowers. Miracle of miracles…the leaves moved. The harrow had loosened them to the point where they could no longer grab the dirt and hold on. While laughing at me.

I blew a tremendous amount of leaves into the woods. I was able to see grass, or bare dirt where grass used to be, in many areas. I can see my driveway. I worked for about four hours.

The blower isn’t ideal. It’s a one-hand blower with a gas engine. It would be perfect for a 1/4-acre lot with reasonable leaves, but I need something more powerful. I have a much stronger electric blower, but the battery only runs 20 minutes, and a second battery is $200+.

I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to buy a gas-powered backpack blower that could knock a truck over. Echo makes one that puts out over 1000 cfm. That’s almost twice what my electric blower puts out.

They say the big Echo is so strong, you can dig holes with it. That’s what I’m talking about.

It’s amazing that my yard requires a tractor, a harrow, a sweeper, and a high-end blower to clean up the leaves, but that’s how it is when successive generations of landowners fail to cut undesirable trees and replace them with better ones. If I had hickories and pecans instead of oaks, I could get rid of my leaves with a rake. I’d also have valuable timber.

I may also buy a peach tree. The man who built my house made some bad plant decisions, and one bad choice was a maple tree 15 feet from the house. Here, maples grow maybe 80 feet tall, and sometimes we get tropical-storm-force winds. Hello? Fortunately, I guess, lightning hit the maple about 15 seconds after my dad closed on the house, and in March, it keeled over and landed in my driveway. I need something to replace it.

I will not even consider citrus. People who buy citrus are in denial. Citrus greening is going to kill every single citrus tree in North America, except for a few varieties. It’s a done deal. When you buy citrus, you’re investing in failure. Besides, I don’t want to be reminded that I’m in Florida. I want my property to look as much like Tennessee or Ohio as possible. The other day I cut a healthy pygmy date palm in pieces and put it on my burn pile.

I have considered buying a peach tree before, but the only varieties that work are strange creations that come from the University of Florida. I figured they had to taste bad. There had to be some sacrifice, in order to get a peach that will produce in hot weather. A friend tells me I’m wrong. He lives in Kissimmee, and he grows good peaches.

He got his tree at Home Depot, of all places. If he can do it, so can I.

I don’t know about the peach tree, but I’m definitely getting a blower, and if things work out, in a month, I may have a yard that looks like a yard. Maybe God will show me how to kill the awful weeds. Maybe he’ll help me find a type of grass that resembles a real lawn.

The interior of the house is very clean. I even got the bird cages clean, which was impossible in the past. Now the order is spreading to the yard, the pasture, and the woods. It’s too much. I love it.

I don’t know why I couldn’t get all these things together before. It must have been my unequal yoking with my then-non-Christian dad. I partnered with a person who chose to live under curses.

I’m on a roll. Thanks to God, every single day is good.

God is Relocating People

A few years back, I had a dream about my dad. At least I thought it was about my dad. Sitting here writing about it, I think it may have been about him AND the church.

I was in his bedroom. In front of me, a devil who resembled a young black man was dancing. He was short and frail. One punch would have rolled him up like a sock and shattered most of the bones in his upper body. Several spirits that looked like owls were dancing around him. They were suspended in the air. They were located precisely so their positions formed the corners of a rectangle around the devil. Each had an assigned place.

I took it to mean that these were the spirits that ruled my dad. I knew owls were symbolic of evil spirits.

I’ve been thinking about it over the last day, and I think the owls represented spirits of false wisdom. Athena was the false goddess of wisdom, and her symbol is an owl. Before he gave himself to Jesus, my dad was extremely conceited about his intellect, and he said he was too sophisticated to be a Christian.

When God cursed the world, he cursed women with difficult childbirth. One big reason childbirth is difficult is that human babies have very large heads. It makes sense, because confidence in our big brains makes it hard for us to enter the kingdom of heaven. God cursed humanity with problems that reflected the curses humanity had laid on him.

Jesus said, “Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” The path into this world is tight, and so is the path into the next world.

Yesterday morning, I dreamed I was on a ship. I was looking for my dad. I found his quarters. It was a large apartment. The same devil was there, dancing. Instead of owls, he was surrounded by dancing roaches. I would say they were around eight inches long. They hovered in the air with their wings spread and their abdomens bent forward, in threatening postures. Other types of vermin crawled toward my feet, but they didn’t climb onto me.

I went into my dad’s bedroom. It stank. It was filthy. His sheets were green with fermented sweat, urine, and other things. He wasn’t there. I somehow knew that he liked to lie in the stinking bed and take drugs.

God talks about casting rebellious people into beds of harlotry.

For some reason, I needed clothing, so I went to the closet. I found a pair of pants that were clean, and I put them on. I fell on the bed briefly, but I managed to roll off without coming into contact with the filth.

I believe the ship was the church. In Genesis, God put his people in an ark and lifted it above the waters of the world. I believe the devil was the spirit that runs the church. He’s not Satan; he’s lower in the hierarchy. He’s black because Africa is the source of a great deal of demon worship. The roaches were spirits that turn preachers into spiritual roaches who destroy and spread spiritual disease instead of building people up. Think of Benny Hinn or John Gray.

My dad represented the preachers who let me down. They were like bad fathers. Never around when I needed them, and when they were around, they caused more problems than they solved. I could not respect them or rely on them. They were dangerous to me, like lepers.

I had a relatively brief engagement with churches. I got a little authority, but I was rejected, so I didn’t get covered in the filth that coated the preachers I served and listened to. Pants are clothing, and clothing is authority. Rolling off the bed without getting dirty represents me moving into churches and then being moved out by God before too much harm could be done. The worst thing that could have happened to me would have been to be honored and made comfortable, because I might have stopped seeking and exposing the truth.

I’ve been asking God to tell me and other people the future. The dream seems to have been about the past, but I suppose it also tells me not to expect or desire any kind of promotion from churches during the remainder of my life. That’s good, because I am fed up with churches. The last thing I want is some backward preacher’s bit between my teeth.

In other news, I just saw an interesting Perry Stone video. He uploaded it in August of 2016, and in it, he quoted an alleged prophecy that was given at one of his events in 2015. The title of the video is “What is About to Happen in the United States,” so I had to watch to see if he had been right or wrong.

Perry Stone has many amazing teachings, but he also wanders off into pride from time to time, and he associates with some unsavory people, such as Steve Munsey, so you can’t assume everything he says is right.

Here is what he said in 2015, as related in the 2016 video:

There is coming a sign in this country. There is coming a sign. It’s in the very near future, and the righteous will discern it, but the unrighteous will not. And you will know it when you see it, because it will be something that is so significant that it will grip your attention, because the Lord is going to do his best to wake up America one more time. And he does this because he loves this country.

Listen to me; I’m hearing it. The widow women have given for missions and for the gospel, and the little women have kept the rural churches alive by baking pies and cakes and the such. People with minimum wage incomes have given to help poor people. America is a giving country. If you don’t believe that, let a disaster happen anywhere in the world; who shows up first?

It doesn’t matter what the country is. If it’s a Muslim country, doesn’t matter. Indonesia? Doesn’t matter. Taiwan? Doesn’t matter. Japan? Doesn’t matter. Who shows up?

And I hear the Spirit of God saying this:

“I remember the good that my people have done, and I will give you another chance because of what you planted in the past. It now comes up before me. What you’ve planted in the past, it will come up before God one more time, and you’re going to see pockets.

As men speak of pockets of selective judgment, so, likewise, there are pockets of selective revival; areas where people will pray and pray and worship and pray until the glory is seen. And it will not be the type of meeting which will make attention from coast to coast, but in that region and with those people.

The town will know that there is a visitation from heaven going on here, and it will be known as the rural revival because people will begin to leave the large cities, not in droves or in masses, but they’ll begin to pull away and not know why into the mountain areas and into the smaller cities because of the danger and the fear of mobs and robbing and looting and stealing, and they’ll be drawn to where the good people are, where they hear people love each other and they care for one another.

And some will come, and they will have no background in the word–they’ll have no background in the things of the Spirit–but they’ll be drawn here because of the mercy of God, and he will draw them to places of mercy of the people of the Lord for his people, and the good people who know their Lord and know their God shall teach them the things of God one more time because the Lord says he still has more than a remnant in this nation.”

Of course, I find this interesting, because it describes exactly what happened to me. I was desperate to get away from Miami, but I couldn’t seem to get free. In 2016, I started looking for a new home in earnest, and in July of 2017, my dad bought the rural home in which I now live.

I’ve been writing about the danger of leftist mobs for years. I know Miami and other big cities will eventually be ruled by crowds of trashy, cruel, underdeveloped, grasping people who have decided to be no better than apes. This is where leftism and hatred of God lead. Perry Stone must have been hearing from the Holy Spirit, because he described my flight from Miami as well as my reasons for leaving.

He also says people are going to move to mountain areas, and he talks about Appalachia and specifically mentions West Virginia and Tennessee. Even though I’ve been here less than two years, I feel a tremendous drive to move to Tennessee. I keep talking about how much I miss Appalachia. I have sat and stared, with thirst, at Youtube videos and real estate websites, just to get a look at mountain properties.

When I decided to watch this video, I expected to be disappointed, but it looks like this was a real prophecy. I hope God sees fit to move me to Appalachia.

God has been helping me get on top of my responsibilities. He has used the revived pressure washer to change my life. The house is getting clean outside, to match the inside. Today I used the pressure washer to clean my birds’ cages. Those cages have frustrated me for years. They are impossible to clean well by hand, without extreme effort. Today I blew the crud off of each one in a few minutes. I was amazed. Anyway, this property is being whipped into shape, and I wonder if I’m getting it ready to live in, or to sell.

It appears that my farm has increased in value since I bought it. There is new construction going up in my area, so the appreciation will probably continue. I may be able to sell without losing anything.

Toward the end of the video, Stone started telling the young people around him about the passage in Joel that says young men will have visions and old men will dream dreams. He interpreted it to mean the kids should have the vision to help him build the ministry he had dreamed about. This is where he got off the Holy Spirit bus. God doesn’t want a bunch of young people to devote their lives to promoting Perry Stone. He wants them to be important in their own right. God didn’t put us here to serve Perry Stone. He put us here to serve God himself.

You can see why I’m a little cautious about Stone. He’ll do great for a while and then veer off into the bushes.

When Joel wrote of “visions,” he was talking about visions. A vision is a supernatural experience in which a person sees things that are not present in the natural realm. In 1984, I woke up in the middle of the night, and my bed had turned 90 degrees. An angel was standing at the foot of the bed with her hands up in worship, and she was bathed in a light that came down from heaven. That’s a vision. John saw visions which he recorded in the Revelation. Ezekiel saw visions. The kind of “vision” a preacher has for building something is a completely different thing. It not a vision at all. It’s just an idea.

I am concerned about people I know who are going to be trapped in cities when things get bad. They don’t listen, so they will have unnecessary problems. I wish I could help them.

Jews insist on living in big cities. They will be easy to find and attack.

I hope I get to visit Appalachia again soon. Maybe I’ll be able to find time.

Mooooooooooooooooo

It looks like I’m a farmer.

I have been working with the property appraiser’s office, and they hooked me up with a guy who mows farms and bales hay. If I produce hay, I’m a farmer, and I can get an agricultural exemption that will cut my property tax. They also gave me a number for a forester. I might be able to get credit for growing timber. Such as it is.

Today the hay guy came by and looked at my farm. He said he wanted to put cattle here instead of mowing and baling.

The more he told me about it, the more I liked it.

If I sell hay, I’ll get nothing. He’ll bale the hay and keep it, and the county will cut my taxes. I’ll still have to maintain my fences and so on. If I put cattle here, he’ll have to pay me for a lease. He’ll keep the fences in order. The cattle will keep the weeds down. I’ll get free manure, too.

It sounds like a good deal.

Right now, I’m trying to find out what to charge him. It doesn’t sound exciting. I am hearing figures ranging from $300 per year to $3285 per year. Based on the information I’ve accumulated, the lower figure is more likely to be correct.

I would be happy to let him put cattle here for nothing, but you can’t do business that way. When you have something of value, you have to charge for it. It’s irresponsible to give things away to strangers. I would have made the deal today, but I had to have a figure to give him.

I also need to look into the legal side of the lease. Do I need a contract? If so, where will I get a form?

When I talked to him about leasing, I made sure he understood I plan to continue shooting and making other use of my land. He understood completely; you don’t want to buy a big farm and then be unable to use it.

I always pray for God to give me and the people on my prayer list property in areas where his people are strong and the spirits against him are weak, and I ask him to send people to take care of what we have and to help us spend our own time serving him. Looks like he chose to grant this prayer with respect to me. I could raise cattle myself, but I would be out there all the time fixing fences and doing other chores.

If I go through with this, I’ll post photos of my new roommates. Never say my life isn’t exciting.

This is Definitely not a Tree of Life

Christians are taught that the Holy Spirit will put joy in them. We’re taught this, but not many of us believe it. If we did, we would be considerably more excited about it than we are, and we would be trying to find out why almost none of us are filled with joy.

It sounds selfish to ask God for joy, but God has made it clear that he wants us to have it, so it’s obvious that we displease him by failing to pursue it.

Joy is an important thing. Joy makes us strong, so without it, presumably, we are weaker than we should be. How do I know joy makes us strong? Because God says the joy of the Lord is our strength. God doesn’t talk just to hear his head rattle. He means every word he says. If God says joy is strength, then joy is strength.

If we really believed the things God says, we would behave a lot differently.

Humans are full of it. We say a lot of things we don’t mean. Christians are big offenders. We talk about how much we love God or other people, for example. Usually, what we really mean is, “We’re SUPPOSED to love God, so I’m saying I love him, even though I’m not sure he’s there and I don’t really have feelings for him.”

People write and utter all sorts of pleasant words that mean nothing. We are used to hearing hot air from human beings, so when God says something, we treat it like hot air. God says he will heal us, but how many Christians believe it? Maybe 5%? Who do most of us go to first when we need healing? Other Christians? Of course not. We go to doctors first. That’s completely backward. Prayer should always be the first thing you do when you need help.

The Holy Spirit offers a whole bunch of gifts. Love, joy, and faith are among them. If you lack any of these gifts, something is wrong, and you should be trying to find out what the problem is.

I’m writing about this because the joy of God has been all over me lately. Maybe it’s because I’m not unequally yoked with my dad any more. I wake up and look forward to the day. I feel reluctant to go to bed, because there are still things I want to get done.

Joy is connected to accomplishment. If you lack joy, you will be lazy. If you have joy, you will have energy to get things done.

I thought I had a lot of energy in the past, but I have much more now. I’ve been putting out old fires right and left. Tasks that used to fill me with dread don’t intimidate me as much now.

Today I did something nuts. I got on my roof with an 18-foot pressure washer lance and blasted the crud out of my gutters. I also bleached the whole east side of the house. It was a miserable job, from the natural standpoint, but I was raring to go this morning.

I went to Walmart and bought myself 6 white T-shirts and some white painter’s pants. Yesterday I got bleach on my Carhartt jeans while pressure washing. That’s not going to happen again. Now I have a uniform. I also tried to buy a cheap straw hat with a strap, but the lady at the register couldn’t find the price, so I let it go. Just as well. It turned out to be a Corona beer hat.

I had to extend the lance, lean it on the pool enclosure, go upstairs, and climb out a window. I pulled the lance up and went to work. It kept catching on things. The job took well over two hours, and I had to go up and down the stairs over and over.

The gutters were disgraceful. I admit it. They filled up during Hurricane Irma, and ever since, I had been hiding my head in the sand. I had to do something, because I had a pretty respectable tree growing over one downspout. When I tried to pull the tree out, I had to fight with it. The root system was about 4 feet long. The tree was tiny, so I had figured there were a few little roots attached to it. Not so.

I was amazed to see dirt in the gutters. I can’t figure out how it got there. I can see how leaves would rot and leave some kind of organic mush, but sand? How does sand get into a roof gutter?

When I blew the junk out, of course, a great deal of debris went through the screen and into the pool area. I had to pressure-sweep the patio, apply bleach, vacuum the pool, skim the pool, and backwash. I was extremely tempted to put it off until tomorrow; it was about 5 p.m. when I got started on the pool stuff. Something inside me kept saying, “Christians have to shoot for excellence.”

That idea came my way via Derek Prince. He complained about the way Christians underachieved. He said that when found out a firm that was helping him publish a book wasn’t run by Christians, he said, “Thank God.” That really hit home. Christians have a reputation for slacking. No one wants to rent a property to a church or contract for services with one, because they are pretty likely to miss rent payments or run out on bills. Christians have a reputation for refusing to tip; even worse, some leave gospel tracts instead of money. I, personally, have learned never to give anything to a church. You can give them money, but if you give them something like a vehicle or a musical instrument, they will destroy it or give it to the pastor or some other idiot in his family.

We’re supposed to do things conscientiously, as though we were working for God. Ouch. I don’t think God liked my roof tree.

I had a spirit of acedia cast out of me once. Acedia is a condition which includes things like laziness and apathy. For quite a while afterward, I got a lot done. It was wonderful. Then something went wrong, and my new joy left me. I think being unequally yoked must have interfered with my deliverance. Non-Christians are oppressive to be around. When you’re yoked up to a non-Christian, you will always have a lot of ideas shot down, and that leads to a state of chronic discouragement. Maybe that’s the problem.

Anyway, I am very grateful for joy. I feel it inside me now, like fire in a steam locomotive. I need strength in order to live correctly. I don’t want to people to look at me and say, “If that’s how Christians live, what good is their God?” I want to be on top of things.

It’s startling how useful a pressure washer is. I buy several things a week to help me get more use out of mine. I have a pressure-adjusting device coming, so I can wash the car safely. I just received a special attachment for cleaning gutters. I installed a new muffler protector today, because I felt bad about the way my dad and I had let the old one rust. I’m going to buy a replacement pump so I’ll have it ready to go when the old one dies.

The pressure washer cleans the house and my car. It also cleans my concrete. On smooth surfaces, it’s better for moving leaves than a blower. I’m thinking I may take the bird cages out and blast them with it; there are things on them I have not been able to dislodge. Every home needs a pressure washer. There are a number of jobs no other tool will do as well.

Tomorrow I hope to get the remaining side of my house clean, and I can start on the workshop. I’m also going to call some people about mowing my hay and managing my timber so I can get tax exemptions. After that, I may climb Mount Everest and swim the English Channel.

Joy is good. Joy is necessary. Joy is better than caffeine, because it doesn’t keep you awake all night. I recommend it.

Thomas Hobbes Would Agree

I’m always interested in reading accounts of people who claim they’ve been to heaven or hell. Some of them are true, and you can learn useful things from them. Even if you learn nothing new, you can get confirmation of things you already know.

I just finished reading a very old account. It surprised me to find it existed. The author is a man named John Bunyan. He wrote books during the 1600’s. His most famous work is a novel called Pilgrim’s Progress. The story of his visit to the supernatural world is called Visions of Heaven and Hell.

Bunyan decided to kill himself. While he was on the way to the place where he planned to commit suicide, an angel appeared to him. He took Bunyan to heaven, where he met and spoke with Elijah. Afterward, they visited hell, where Bunyan saw Satan and a number of damned individuals, including the famous philosopher Thomas Hobbes. Bunyan had known Hobbes.

I think Bunyan’s book is true. It seems very consistent with scripture and with other credible accounts of similar visits. It’s also consistent with my own revelations and supernatural experiences.

The first thing that impressed me about the story was Bunyan’s description of Earth. As he and the angle rose toward heaven, Earth started to look like a small dark spot. Bunyan said it appeared to be something to be despised. The word “despised” means “contemned.” People think it means “hated,” but that isn’t true.

Bunyan thought about the way people strove to get domination and promotion on the little dark spot, and he realized they were throwing their lives away, including their eternal lives, for something of no value at all.

That’s consistent with what Jesus preached. He said, “He who loves his life will lose it.” Bunyan quoted Jesus: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Jesus meant what he said very literally.

Bunyan also learned something that conflicts with Catholicism: the dead in Christ don’t know what’s going on down here. They have general information about developments in the church, but Mary, your mom, and your dad don’t know you have cancer or that you need an A on your Spanish exam. Praying to them is pointless, because they don’t hear you.

How could heaven be heaven if people there were constantly assaulted with knowledge of the bad things that were happening to their living friends and relatives? One of the purposes of death is to give us finality and peace. How could that purpose be served if there was worry in heaven? It’s not possible. We are concerned about living individuals while we are here, but once we’re free, we’re really free, and they are on their own.

He confirmed something which continually amazes me: the symmetry of the supernatural. I’ll provide some examples of things I have noticed. Christians and Jews who are saved have Yahweh; everyone else has Satan. God has righteous angels; Satan has fallen angels. Christians are inhabited by the Holy Spirit; everyone else is inhabited by demons. God takes us to be with him in a place of eternal joy; Satan draws us down to a place of eternal torture. God lowers heavenly virtues to people on earth; Satan raises the iniquities of hell into them. Christians pray in tongues; others chant or meditate on Satanic mantras.

Lately, I’ve been asking God to help me to have treasure in heaven. I believe most people think “treasure in heaven” means some kind of wealth, like piles of rubies and diamonds. It actually means people who are saved. If you help someone receive salvation, you will have that person with you in heaven, and he or she will be a treasure to you.

I’ve also been asking God to minimize my garbage in hell. Hell is a garbage dump, which is why Jesus compared it to Gehenna, Jerusalem’s dump. It’s why Judas fell into Gehenna. People who die unsaved turn themselves into God’s garbage. If I lead someone to hell, then I’ll have garbage in hell.

Bunyan’s experience confirms what I believe. He said people in hell desperately want people they know to be saved. The reason isn’t that they care about them; it’s that the people they corrupt will be their enemies, or at least reason for more torment, in hell. They will make their influencers suffer. No one in hell loves anyone else. They just want to minimize their own suffering.

If you have treasure in heaven, you are surrounded by people you love very intensely, and they bring you great pleasure. If you help someone fall into hell, that person will be with you forever, hating you and accusing you. It’s a symmetrical arrangement.

Imagine the throngs of enemies damned rock stars and actors have.

I believe Satan will be the most tormented person in the lake of fire, because every damned spirit there will hold him responsible for what has happened to him or her.

Bunyan and the angel had a number of conversations with residents of hell, and they discussed things between themselves, too. A damned spirit who fell from heaven argued that man did not deserve more pity than he did. The angel refuted him.

The premise is that if you sin without being tempted, you don’t deserve pity, but if you are subject to temptation, you should be able to get mercy. The fallen angel said he had been tempted by Satan, like man, yet he had been damned as soon as he sinned, with no hope of recovery. He implied that men were no better than he was, and that they deserved no sympathy.

The angel who escorted Bunyan called the fallen spirit a liar and said he had been damned because of pride.

“O you apostate, wicked, lying spirit! Can you say those things and see me here? You know it was your proud heart that made you rebel with Lucifer against the blessed God who had created you with glory! But since you proudly exalted yourself above your blessed Creator, and joined with Lucifer, you are justly cast down to hell. Your former beauty has been changed to your present horrible form as the just punishment of your rebellious pride.”

This makes sense, because the Bible says Lucifer was damned for the iniquity of pride, not the sin of rebellion. God will not permit anything evil to enter heaven, and when a person has an iniquity, he is imperfect and therefore evil.

Scripture says Lucifer was damned for a thought, not an act.

Look:

For you have said in your heart:
“I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
I will also sit on the mount of the congregation
On the farthest sides of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
I will be like the Most High.”
Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol,
To the lowest depths of the Pit.

The damned spirit who argued with the angel brought pride into heaven, so he had to go.

Satan wants to bring the iniquities of the flesh into heaven, and God wants to bring the perfection of heaven into the earth while we are still flesh. Symmetry.

Bunyan wrote about the presence of God. In his book, Elijah says that in heaven, we can be in God’s presence continually, whereas here on earth, there have to be interruptions. He also says that on earth, “love is mixed with fear, and fear has torment, but here love is perfect, and perfect love casts out fear.”

Elijah also said there was no temptation in heaven. He said, “Not only are the saints here free from sin, but also from any temptation to sin.” He said, “In the earth below, the best and holiest of souls groan under the burden of corruption. Sin tries to cling to all that they do, and often leads them captive against their will.”

I have often wondered how I’ll avoid sinning in heaven. Satan hovered over God’s throne as his pampered servant, yet he still sinned. It’s a comfort to read that I will not have to worry about falling.

For a long time, I’ve been calling God an ocean when I praise him. For example, I’ve said he was my only infinite sea of perfect peace. This comes from my memory of what I felt when Jesus visited me. Limitless peace, love, and joy shone through me and surrounded me. In the book, Elijah uses the same metaphor.

The ever blessed God is an unbounded ocean of light and life, and joy and happiness, still filling every vessel that is put therein, till it can hold no more.

To me, this is evidence that Bunyan really visited heaven, because I know God is like an ocean from personal experience. No one told me. I didn’t hear it in a Benny Hinn sermon. It sounds like Elijah and other people in heaven experience what I did, on a bigger scale.

Speaking of things shining through people, Bunyan’s book says that in heaven, everything is transparent, and the presence of God shines through all of it. Another person who says he visited heaven has said there were no shadows there. It’s common to hear people say things in heaven are transparent, and I doubt they’ve all read Bunyan’s book.

The earth is a place of corruption and secrecy, so it makes sense that we have shadows and darkness here. They would serve no purpose in heaven. You would expect the light of God’s presence to be everywhere.

People who have visited hell say it’s extremely dark.

I could go on all day. I guess I have.

I enjoyed the book a great deal, and I plan to read it again in the future.

I Feel Almost Competent

I have to blog again. I have fixed the surging on my Homelite pressure washer. I feel invincible.

I found the answer on one of the most useful Youtube channels imaginable: Steve’s Small Engine Saloon. The proprietor took a carburetor just like mine, opened up the access to the pilot jet, and reamed the ethanol crud out with a 0.013″ wire gauge drill bit.

It’s so simple a swing voter could do it.

I ordered the drill bits he recommended, and today I spent 10 or 15 easy minutes opening up my pilot jet.

Now my engine doesn’t surge at all. The next time I use the pressure washer, I’ll actually know what to expect from one second to the next.

Here’s another one of his videos. This one got the pressure washer running. The one about surging made it run correctly.

Ethanol is so destructive; why doesn’t everyone know about wire gauge drill bits? I’ve thrown out a number of Harley jets I could have saved, had I known what to use.

You always hear people say you should use carb cleaner or Sea Foam to fix clogged jets. That stuff never works. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t, anyway. I don’t think I’ve ever seen carb cleaner fix a carburetor. I put Sea Foam in some tools with clogged carbs, and while it improved things, it didn’t solve my problems. A mechanical device like a drill bit gets in there and gets it DONE. It doesn’t make excuses.

I have a generator which is acting up. You better believe I’m going to yank the carb. I’m positive I can fix it. Once I get that done, I can MIG weld again. I’d like to build a mobile base for my giant table saw, but I can’t do it without MIG.

If I had known about wire gauge bits, I would have used them to fix my Echo CS-590 chainsaw instead of wrecking it and then paying a repair shop $135.

The outside of my buildings should be pretty clean 7 days from now. It’s a dream come true.

Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.

Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

That about sums it up.

No More Shades of Grey Here

Success is clinging to me like a bad smell.

Today I finally figured out how to clean my house. I don’t mean the inside of the house. I mean the outside. I have had algae, mold, and other things trying to take over ever since I moved here. The house is supposed to be white, but some parts are grey, and others are green.

Last week I got my dad’s pressure washer running, and I started pimping it out. I put a new hose on it, and I got an 18-foot lance. I even ordered some totally unnecessary chromed parts to replace rusted ones the Miami weather had messed up.

I used the washer to clean part of the driveway (special attachment), and I tried the narrow spray nozzle on the sides of the house. It turned out to be useless for this purpose. That surprised me.

I started Googling and reading.

I learned that there are products you can put in a pressure washer’s soap tank, to make it clean various things. Some of these products are detergents. Others are fungicides. Some contain bleach. I didn’t want to use bleach, because bleaching my house seemed like a good way to damage it, so I looked into other chemicals. The more I looked, the more I read that bleach was the way to go.

I also read–and I don’t know why this should surprise me–that you should never use bleach in a pressure washer. Apparently it eats the seals in the pump, as well as the O-rings in the hose and wand. Never, never, never use bleach in a pressure washer. That’s what they say. Unfortunately, they also say a pressure washer will not get a house clean without bleach, so everyone uses it.

I found out about a product called Mold Armor EZ House Wash. It contains bleach. It comes in a bottle that attaches to a hose. Reviewers said good things about it. They said you could stand on the ground and hose down your second story. That sounded good to me. Pressure washers can be hard to control, and I didn’t want to bleach myself as well as the house. I bought some Mold Armor EZ House Wash and tried it. I have incredible water pressure, so I figured it would work great.

It turns out this product will, in fact, reach the second story of your house. Provided you live in a Barbie Beach House. I found that it sprayed about 8 feet. I could barely reach my first-floor soffit. What a ripoff. Who writes these bogus reviews?

It’s also weak. It didn’t do a great job on the things it managed to hit. It’s also awkward to use. It’s not easy to aim it and turn the bleach flow on and off without hitting the wrong things.

I decided to give the pressure washer a try. I made a solution of about 4 parts water and 1 part 10% pool chlorine, along with a generous squirt of Dawn. I put it in the pressure washer’s tank and blasted the side of the house It shot all the way up to to the roof of the second story. No need for the 18-foot lance, and no need to climb out an upstairs window and walk on the roof. Nice.

It was beautiful. I bleached the house, and in a few minutes, the area I sprayed was nearly white. I was able to use the rinse setting on the pressure washer to get the chlorine off the wall and my plants.

It was so easy, it was ridiculous. When I was done, I needed to empty the soap tank, so I sprayed the driveway. Bonus! I can use the pressure washer to improve the driveway after getting the bulk of the crud off with the hard surface attachment. You can apply bleach to a driveway with a mop, but the pressure washer will do 150 square feet in one minute.

My neighbor paid some dude $300 to wash his house. I figure I can do my house in an easy three hours.

Now…what about the pump? Won’t the chlorine eat it?

Maybe the pump will die, but guess what a replacement pump costs? I’ll tell you: $80. Hmm…pay some guy $300 every time I see mold, or spend $80 on a new pump every three years. Tough call.

If you go to a ripoff parts site to get the pump, it runs $163. Forget that noise. Ebay!

The washer has a great Honda motor with Easy Start, and the pump is easy to replace, so I see no reason why I shouldn’t be able to keep it running a very long time. I can go ahead and buy a new pump now, and when the old one dies, I won’t have to wait for shipping.

Here’s something I didn’t know: unless you spend four figures on a pressure washer, you should expect the pump to crap out in a couple of years. They don’t put this information on the box in big orange letters. They expect homeowners to use their machines very little, so cheap pumps are standard. It’s really sneaky. They give you a great Honda motor so you feel like you bought a quality machine, but they don’t tell you the motor will outlive 10 pumps.

I also bought a pressurized can of pump protector. It’s a greasy substance–possibly grease–you’re supposed to shoot into your pump every time you store it for a long period. This is another thing they don’t mention on the box. I decided I’m going to use it every time I use bleach. Can’t hurt, and it cost 6 bucks.

A better pressure washer will run a grand or more. The one I’m using cost $300, and it works great. I can go through 7 pumps before I reach the point where I’ve spent what a better machine would cost. A better machine would pump more water, and it would be adjustable, which would be nice, but at the moment, my washer is doing everything I want it to.

I feel like keeping this washer alive far past its time, just to make a point.

The carb is still surging, which is annoying, but today my wire gauge drill bit set arrived, so I should be able to clear the carb today or tomorrow. If I can’t manage it, I’ll have to spend the princely sum of $15 on a Chinese replacement.

Unreliable sources say American Indians came up with the saying, “It is a good day to die.” I would counter with, “It is a good day to live.” When your pressure washer is working and you have a new set of wire gauge drill bits, it’s hard to lack enthusiasm for life.

In even better news, I managed to fix problems with a deed to one of my properties. It has now been accepted and recorded, and the property in question is officially out of my dad’s estate, bringing me one step closer to getting probate over with. Yeah, baby!

Tomorrow I’m hoping to contact a couple of people who can help me get agricultural tax exemptions for my house, and if that works, my property taxes will be cut in half. I’m eager to get that over with.

The 23rd psalm says, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” When I spend time with God in the morning, I recite that, and I say, “Today is one of the days of my life, so it must apply.” It says “ALL the days of my life.”

Can’t wait to see the rest of the house brightened up.

Welcome, Loving Father

I truly believe God is helping me get it together in the natural, now that my dad and the spirits that swarmed around him are gone. I keep finding new ways to improve things around me.

I have always hated waxing cars. Because I hated waxing, which involved sweating in the Miami sun, I also neglected washing. I would run vehicles through a gas station car wash once in a while, but that was it.

This week, I got my dad’s old pressure washer running. A fantastic Youtube video showed me how to get the ethanol crud out of the carb’s main jet in a hurry, and I bought a new hose and an extended wand for cleaning my house. I even have some new metal parts on the way, to make the pressure washer look better. I may remove the frame and paint it.

The first thing I cleaned with the pressure washer was the pressure washer. I knocked some decals off, but I can live without them.

Once the machine was running, I thought about the SUV I inherited. It’s not very old, and I would like to keep it in good shape. I’ve learned a lot of things about pressure washers and cars.

First, a gas-powered pressure washer is not too strong for car washing. Some people say otherwise. Yes, it will damage your car if you hold the nozzle too close. There is a way to avoid that. Hold it farther away.

Second, you can use ordinary car wash soaps in pressure washers. I found that people liked Turtle Wax products. They wash and wax at the same time, and they’re not expensive.

My machine dilutes soap at a ratio of 20:1. The soap should be applied at 128:1. That means I have to dilute the soap at around 7:1 before I put it in the pressure washer’s tank. It will work. Other people do it, and the people who make car wash soap endorse it.

Do you just load the machine and blast away? NO! You need a foam cannon. This is an attachment that turns soap into heavy foam. You cover your car with the foam, wait a while, and blow it off. Job done. I suppose you can work on details after that, but the foam will get the basic mission accomplished.

I can handle that!

I needed a foam cannon that could handle 3100 psi, and Amazon had one, for around $20. I’m all set. Now I don’t have to wash by hand. I don’t have to wax by hand. I don’t have to drive to a car wash and pay to use their pressure machine. I don’t have to drive to a hand car wash and sit for 90 minutes.

Simple.

The wax probably can’t compare to hand-applied wax, but who cares? I can wash the car twice a month with very little effort. Even bad wax will look good if you apply it twice a month.

The pressure washer surges a little. Oh, no! What will I do?

1. Chinese carbs sell for under $20 on the Internet, and replacing a carb takes less than 10 minutes.

2. The same guy who did the video about cleaning main jets did a video about cleaning idle jets. Ethanol crud in the idle jet causes surging.

His channel is wonderful. He introduced me to a new tool called a wire gauge drill bit. These are tiny bits that bend. You buy a 0.013″ bit, put it in a pin vise, and ream out your idle jet. Just takes a minute.

It’s not easy to get information about wire gauge drill bits. I’ll save you time. There are two main types: carbon steel and high-speed steel. HSS (as we tool nerds call it) is a superior material because it stays sharp longer, but carbon steel is what you want for a carb, because it bends without snapping.

I already have a bunch of carbide bits in small gauges, but they’re very brittle. I don’t want to have to retrieve a broken bit from my carb.

My bits will arrive today or tomorrow, and then I’ll be ready to fix the carb. If I fail, $15 or so will get me a new one.

I’ll link to the set I bought. It comes with bits and a pin vise. Here it is.

A pin vise is a pen-shaped tool that clamps onto pin-like objects such as drill bits. It’s sort of like the body of an X-Acto knife.

While I was fooling around with the bits, I decided to do something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. I bought some special tools for working on electronic devices. I already have a lot of electronics tools, but they’re for old-fashioned products. Newer things like smartphones and tablets require weird new tools like spudgers and suction cups.

There is a great website called Ifixit. They have a forum. They are “right to repair” fanatics. Manufacturers (*cough* Apple) like to make products hard to work on so we give up and buy new ones instead of fixing them. Right-to-repairers are fighting them. They’re even getting lawmakers to protect the right to repair without voiding warranties.

Ifixit has a neat set of electronics tools. Unfortunately, it’s worth about $25, and they charge $60. I found several items which were better and cheaper. When combined, they will do what the Ifixit kit will do, much cheaper.

Example: the Nanch precision screwdriver set. I already have precision screwdrivers, but this set has a bunch of tiny weird bits to help you remove fasteners Apple and Samsung and the others use to keep you out of their products. The Ifixit set has screwdrivers and bits, but people complain that the bits fall apart. This set has better steel.

I also ordered a couple of suction cups. My 2016 Samsung phone came apart easily. The new phone I had to get is different. It’s full of goo. In order to waterproof it, Samsung glued the shells together. To get them apart, you have to put a suction cup on each side and pull. Many phones and tablets work this way. If you want to replace the battery, you have to open the phone, scrape off the old goo, and put in new goo. You can buy new goo online. A goo-based gaskety sort of thing for my phone is readily available.

My phone used to run for 24 hours with no problem, but it seems to be losing its stamina. Replacing the battery costs $70 locally, and the tech would keep the phone for a while. Now if I get tired of the battery, I can fix it myself for about $20.

The pressure washer carb gave me an excuse to get more tools, so color me happy.

I’m also planning to have my pickup painted. It’s in great mechanical shape, but Dodge paint is not very tough. Two-part paint is garbage, if you ask me. The stuff they used in the 70’s lasted forever, and you could repaint your car yourself if you wanted. The new stuff lasts exactly 7 years in the Florida sun, even if you wax, and once the clearcoat cracks, the whole car has to be sanded and painted.

I figure the SUV will need paint by 2023, but I will probably be ready to buy something else by then.

Let’s see. What else has changed? My arms were starting to hurt from holding my cell phone. I get a lot of long calls these days. Friends want to talk about God. There is something about the shape or size of a smartphone that makes it unpleasant to hold for long periods; it puts strain on the muscles around the elbow. I finally ordered a Bluetooth rig. I was going to get a Plantronics for somewhere in the area of $100, but I found a Chinese job everyone raves about for $20, so I’m giving it a whirl.

I never thought I would talk on the phone so much it would be a problem. Historically, my cell phones have gotten very little use apart from texting.

I’m spending a lot of money this month, but with a few exceptions, it’s all stuff I should have bought long ago. I may even upgrade to fixed wireless Internet, since my current service is about what the Flintstones had. You tell the mammoth whose head sticks through a hole in your wall that you want to see cat memes, and he tells a pterodactyl, and the pterodactyl flies off and tells a guy who chisels memes on slabs of rock.

I’m also getting rid of some things. I’m canceling my dad’s newspaper subscriptions. I can tell God doesn’t want me reading or watching the news right now, and the unread papers keep piling up. I’ve been looking into ways to get newsprint for my birds, and it looks like rolls are cheaper than newspapers.

UPDATE

I started writing this blog post on the 26th, but I forgot about it. I am here to continue.

My Amazon foam cannon was a failure. It’s Chinese, so no surprise. Sometimes Chinese products just don’t work. I’m returning it. I found a new one at Lowe’s. The packaging says it’s good for 3700 psi, and my machine is 3100, so the high pressure of the machine should not be a problem.

The Lowe’s cannon cost $35, and I’m not happy about it, but I don’t want to spend the next month sending foam cannons back to Amazon.

I keep learning new things about 2-cycle tools.

I thought ethanol, all by itself, was the thing that ruined engines. Now I’m wondering. Ethanol is unquestionably poison, and it cuts fuel storage life in half, but the Youtube guy I watch claims that even ethanol-free gas is bad. He says it contains olefins, which create varnish, and benzene, which ruins diaphragms.

Saw makers sell ethanol-free premixed fuel for $20 and up per gallon. The Youtube dude claims this fuel doesn’t contain olefins or benzene in significant amounts. He says you should fill your saw with Gucci gas before you store it, run it for 5 minutes to get the bad gas out, and then put it away with the tank full.

Question: why put it away with the tank full? The gas in the tank won’t get into your carb, so it can’t help your engine. A cynical person would say the manufacturers just want to make sure you spend a hundred bucks a year on their products instead of 6 dollars.

Where I live, there is no such thing as “winterizing.” I am equally likely to use a saw in any season. I might put a saw away three times a year. I’m not spending $10 on Gucci gas every time I do that. In my case, it adds up to $30 per incident, because I have three saws.

I’m thinking I may spend 6 dollars on a small can of super gas and run one ounce through each saw when I think I’m not going to use it for a while. If one ounce won’t work, neither will half a gallon.

Alternatively, I could use an ounce of Sea Foam. It can’t turn into gum, so it’s probably better than Gucci gas. You can run a saw on 100% Sea Foam without problems.

I have reached another conclusion: when you buy a new chainsaw, you should remove the carb, sell it, and buy a Chinese carb. You can make a $60 profit, and Chinese carbs are better, because they can be adjusted and they are easier to repair. The original carb will probably be Chinese, too, so the quality is the same. You should keep the old carb long enough to get past early warranty issues, and then you should pull it.

There is no point in playing along with the hippie nanny-state ethanol/emissions drama any longer than you absolutely have to. Some day, we may have practical saws that run fine on bad gas and don’t pollute unnecessarily (or we might wake up and get rid of ethanol), and that would be great, but until then, you may have to break the rules unless you want saws that sit unused or require repairs that effectively boost their prices by 30%.

While I’m bloviating, I found what may be the most amazing Harbor Freight tool ever: the circular saw sharpening machine. For the pre-coupon price of $55, this thing will sharpen any blade up to 16″ in diameter, whether steel or carbide. Reviewers love it, although it takes some effort to make it work right.

I have a ton of blades, and I’ve always felt that paying a big percentage of a blade’s price to have it sharpened was a bad deal. I have a 14″ dry cut blade, and when I lived in Miami, I would have had to mail it to someone. Imagine the hassle and expense. I’ve been putting up with a moderately dull blade. Sharpening was a pain, and a new blade was $140. If I buy the tool, I can fix the blade myself, right here.

So there will be some redemption in this blog post, I will relate a couple of words God gave me this morning.

1. Thank you for freeing me from the world.

I feel that very bad supernatural events must be coming, because I am disconnecting from the world more and more. Fiction movies and TV shows seem juvenile to me; people who run around in spandex pretending to be superheroes look especially undignified. I no longer have newspapers coming to the house. I’m extremely grateful because I don’t have a regular job, in which I would be coerced to go along with the system. I’m very glad I am less dependent on the Satanic world we live in, but I am concerned for everyone else.

I used to wonder if it was right for God’s people to flee areas and let Satan’s people have them. This week, I thought about that, and I realized it’s a very Biblical thing. Noah and his family fled, and they were saved. Lot and his daughters fled. Abraham fled. Joseph and Mary fled to Egypt. God has a history of pulling his people out of places, and sometimes it precedes disaster and judgment. If God is moving people like me to the country, to areas where Christians predominate, it seems likely that some kind of supernatural catastrophe is coming to areas the ungodly control. My guess is that demonic activity, including persecution, will explode soon. We’re already seeing signs.

2. Thank you for humiliating the losers.

Satan is a loser. He is the “god” of all losers. He is the father of all losers. He is the biggest loser there is. He is an outsider and outlaw. His crowd is like the family at the end of the street with the lawn that never gets mowed, with a living room full of stolen goods and a backyard full of marijuana plants. We all know what losers are like.

These days, we think it’s cute to call yourself an outlaw. In the old days, it was like being called a maggot. It was a huge insult. It should be, still.

The spirits that serve Satan are losers. They threw their futures away. Now they come after us, just as human losers do, selling their tired, stinking wares, hoping we’ll become losers, too, so God will suffer.

I’m very grateful that God is humiliating the losers in my life. I want these spirits to be degraded and abased all the time, and I want the Holy Spirit to be honored and empowered.

God showed me something today. All Christians know that demons want to enter and live in bodies. While I was watching Derek Prince this morning, he taught about God’s desire to make us his temples, and I realized the Holy Spirit wants bodies, too. He doesn’t want to control or ruin us, but he wants to live inside us, just as demons do.

I already knew this, but somehow God has given it new emphasis in my heart.

The symmetry of the supernatural is amazing. Satan copies everything from God. He is the China of spirits.

Over the years, I invited losers to live in me and turn me into a house gone to seed. Now God lives in me, and the losers are being humiliated and evicted. This is what God wants for us.

The losers have no future but pain and humiliation. I’m very glad to see God break them. I wish I had gotten on board sooner.

That’s all for today. I may go foam my car.

Step Away From Cursed People

My dad and my sister shared some problems. They both hoarded things, and they didn’t take care of what they had. My sister destroyed a house by failing to do normal maintenance and cleaning, and my dad would have done the same thing to his own house, had I not stepped in from time to time. They drove filthy cars. My dad didn’t take care of his boat, so it was normal to have problems when we took it out.

My dad used to get very angry with my mother and me when we talked to him about taking care of things. If one of us pointed out termite droppings or wet spots on the ceiling, for example, he would raise his voice and ask if we wanted to pay for the repairs. It was very unpleasant, so we both adopted the same strategy: keep quiet until there was a disaster. When the ceiling fell in, he was willing to let me call a roofer. Before that, talking about roof leaks was a bad idea.

My sister’s house had a water leak under the floor. She said her monthly water bill was between 300 and 400 dollars, but instead of hiring a plumber, she just paid the bills and lived with the termites, ants, roaches, and rats the water attracted. Her living room floor eventually caved in. At some point, a hot water connection under her kitchen sink broke, and the house filled with steam. When the steam dissipated, she assumed everything was all right. Of course, the steam was gone because the water heater couldn’t keep up with the flow. The interior walls of the house turned black with mold within a few days.

My dad kept junk that served no purpose. He printed out thousands of emails and kept them. After I took over his office, I threw out maybe 200 pounds of useless papers. My sister could not walk 30 feet in a store without picking up something to buy, and her house was so full of unneeded things, it was hard to walk in some rooms.

I don’t like saying negative things about my dad these days. I used to get relief from it. I vented. He used to gaslight me a lot, and when people gaslight you, you vent in order to confirm your own sanity to yourself. I don’t need to vent now. When my dad died, he was a wonderful father, and he loved God. I don’t enjoy criticizing him, but sometimes I have to say unpleasant things in order to make a point.

I was unequally yoked with my dad. I chose to stay with him when I went to law school, and I chose to work with him afterward. I believe God sentenced me to spend years dealing with him because of my bad choices. Eventually, I understood that it was wrong to be so close to someone who hated God, and I wanted to be free. I kept telling God I would never have another unequal yoking. I hoped that once my yoking to my dad was over, I would be free of some of his curses.

I believe my dad and my sister were cursed. Hoarding and letting things fall apart around you are abnormal behaviors. Their problems went beyond these things. Their property suffered unusual damage and wear, and it was hard to fix things when they went wrong. Contractors ran off with their money and didn’t do their jobs. Repairs turned out to be unsuccessful. Things that shouldn’t have gone wrong, did.

For a long time, I have hoped that I would not have to deal with these curses after my dad’s death. I managed his affairs, and even though I was a Christian with a good prayer life, it was hard to take care of his property. Bad things kept happening. Problems resisted correction.

When he bought what is now my house, a bolt of lightning destroyed a maple tree by the driveway. The main air conditioner in the house had to be replaced right away, and it leaked water that buckled some flooring. Three weeks after we moved in, Hurricane Irma knocked trees down all over the property. I had surprising difficulty in moving trees and burning them. My chainsaws got gummed up. My generator clogged up. I also had terrible problems with the lawn. I bought an expensive sweeper to get rid of oak leaves, and I installed mulching blades on the mower. These things didn’t help. I searched the Internet, and I asked many people for advice. I got nowhere.

I also felt a powerful sense of dread when it came to getting going on fixing things. I holed up and let many things go. I had to fight the dread every day. I felt great resistance.

I felt that the problems had to be related to our unequal yoking. My own belongings usually fare pretty well. The record isn’t perfect, but I am not a hoarder, I take fairly good care of my things, and I don’t think I would ever let a house get condemned.

Now that my dad is gone, things have changed a great deal. A chainsaw I could not get fixed is finally okay. My pruner’s carb was clogged up, and I found a $15 Chinese carb on Ebay that was actually superior, so I didn’t have to pay anyone to fix the old one (I listed the price incorrectly as $11 in an earlier post). I got rid of a horrible overgrown tree in a concrete planter beside the pool; it had been ruining the patio. I got my dad’s old neglected pressure washer out, and when I looked for information on fixing it, I found a Youtube video featuring the exact same machine with the same problem. I fixed it very quickly, and yesterday I blasted all sorts of crap off the patio. I even found I could remove green discoloration from the screen enclosure; that had been driving me crazy.

I finally found out how to avoid the problems ethanol gas causes with small engines. You would be surprised how hard it is to get that information. The advice you get through casual Internet searches and from reading product manuals is wrong.

I couldn’t get anything to grow here. Now I have three healthy grapevines and two strong blackberry briars growing by my garage.

The tax collector’s office is going to connect me with someone who will mow my pasture for nothing and reduce my property taxes; I’ll get an exemption as a hay producer. I bought a harrow to loosen the oak leaves in my lawn, and now I’m removing and dumping leaves and other debris at a very fast pace. My lawn is going to come back.

I got an 18-foot extension for the pressure cleaner, so I’ll be able to clean the entire house. I found a great video on pressure-washing concrete. It showed me I need an accessory that will make all my pavement look great.

Before my dad died, I could not get rid of the house my sister used to own. It seemed like it was impossible to sell. Now I have a contract on it, and two other buyers are waiting in the wings. I could not figure out what to do with my dad’s old house, but now I’m in the process of listing it.

I was planning to mow the swale by the highway to my east, to keep weeds and trees out. Yesterday I was driving home, and I saw that someone had just mowed it. I assume it was the county. Beautiful.

My house is very clean. It’s considerably cleaner than I’m used to. I have never had the kind of gross habits my dad and my sister had, but I was not neat, either. I love living in a clean house. I still need to order it, but that’s happening.

Before my dad accepted Jesus, I had a great deal of stress in my life, and I had problems that seemed impervious to my natural and supernatural efforts. When he moved to assisted living and started praying with me, things improved dramatically. Now that he’s gone, I sleep well. I don’t worry. Problems keep dissolving. I feel God’s joy in my heart. I marvel at my happiness and how well God is treating me. It may seem strange to hear that an old man who lives alone on a big farm could be enjoying life so much, but it’s true. I wish I had gotten rid of my unhealthy relationships earlier in life.

I also keep feeling that God is going to put me together with a lady I know. I have been wrong about things like that before, so I won’t predict anything, but I keep seeing surprising confirmation.

Unequal yokings are extremely destructive. Let them go. God wants you to pray for your enemies; he does not want you to live with them, marry them, work with them, be close friends with them, or partner with them in business. If you choose unequal yokings, you will pay. There is no way around it.

I recall a Christian writer saying unbelievers were like black holes. Boy, is that true. God is like a sun that shines and makes us grow, and strong Christians also feed and help those around them. Unbelievers who won’t listen seem to suck light in and deprive the rest of us. They waste and destroy. The things you do for them impoverish you and don’t help them. Being around them drains you.

Don’t make the mistakes I made. Clear your life of toxic people as soon as you can. You may be stuck with a spouse or a minor child, but you can get free of a boyfriend, girlfriend, fiance, fiancee, brother, sister, partner, or friend who is corrupting your life.

I had a visit from a Christian friend yesterday, and he asked about someone I knew in Miami. I had to relay some bad news. My Miami “friend” had been cut loose. I realized I only heard from him when he wanted something. He took advantage of me and people I knew. He treated people disrespectfully. He would do things like borrowing tools and letting them sit in his yard in the rain. He used racist language.

When I took him fishing, while the other guests cleaned up the boat, he came and stood beside me at the fish-cleaning table with a beer in his hand, chuckling because he had left them with the hard work.

He was envious; he could not be trusted to borrow tools and not damage them “accidentally.” He blew up and threw tantrums. He had a lot of bad ideas, but he always had to be in charge.

I’ll tell you a story about him. We used to give each other birthday presents. I always got him nice things. For example, I got him a big Forschner knife for use while barbecuing. One year, he gave me a plastic toy. It was a big pink pig in leathers, sitting on a plastic Harley. When you flipped a switch, it oinked, and lights flashed. He said, “It’s YOU!”

This was probably something from a store like Tuesday Morning, where they sell junk other stores couldn’t unload. As soon as I got home, I threw it on the trash pile by the street. I did not open it or even take it inside.

On another occasion, he asked he if he could take a look at a cigar I was smoking. I handed it to him, and he threw it down–on my patio–and made a remark about how I shouldn’t smoke Cuban cigars.

This person, who was not accomplished or admired by people who knew him, always tried to make me feel ashamed of myself, as though I were inferior to him. I was highly educated and had a number of things going for me, but I felt bad nearly every time I was with him.

When God showed me I was only negatively impacted by this person, I let him go, instantly. I never explained. I never regretted it. It was great to be rid of him, because I felt so much better. I used to pray for him, but I don’t even do that any more. He’s a grown man, and he knows what he’s doing.

You may have someone like this in your life. Maybe they like to say they love you, and you believe it. If a person loves you, he will treat you well. If you’re not being treated well, you are selling yourself cheap, and you need to cut the cord. God told me it’s more important to weed the wrong people out of your life than to include the right people.

It can’t think of anyone I regret cutting out of my life, but I can think of a lot of people I regret including.

Derek Prince spoke about our value, and he made a good point. A thing’s value is whatever someone will pay for it. Jesus allowed himself to be tortured to death so he could have you, so you must be very valuable.

Who is a mere man to tell you you’re not valuable, or that you should live in constant shame? Without the Holy Spirit, a man is just a rat that walks on two legs. Would you let a rat shame you?

Ask God to help you get rid of your unequal yokings. Repent. Apologize for forming them. If you want God’s help and his joy to flow in your life, you need to get rid of the immature people who stop you up like gallstones.

On another note, God showed me something very good this week. He gave me a phrase: “I forget what I was.”

Often, I forget that I used to be a real idiot. I have made fun of people who believe in the prosperity gospel, but in the 1980’s, I believed it, because I hadn’t heard otherwise from the Holy Spirit. I have been very hard on people who think Steve Munsey’s awful teachings about Jewish holidays are sound, but I gave money in one of the Munsey-based drives Trinity Church in Miami mounted. I knew very little about God until I was 40, and what I did know, I threw away. I wasted years.

All the revelation I’ve had is just that: revelation. It’s an inheritance, not something I earned. I didn’t think any of it up. When I used to try to figure God out, I got it wrong. I didn’t know much of value until the Holy Spirit came out and told me. I still have to resist the feeling that I came up with these ideas myself. It’s a delusion.

Psalm 1 says a man is blessed if he doesn’t sit in the seat of the scornful. Who has been more scornful than I? I have been cruel to people who knew less, even though I used to be one of them. I thought ridicule was a good thing.

If I understand the Bible correctly, it says we have to be charitable to people who sin, because if we are not, we may fall into temptation, ourselves. I don’t want to be a slave to sin. Also, I don’t want to be an obnoxious person who drives people away from God with a self-righteous attitude.

I’m going to keep this new information in mind. I want to be improved.

One benefit of ridding yourself of unequal yokings is that you will be free from pressure to be part of today’s culture of cruelty and ridicule. You will tend to become like the people you associate with, and these days, everyone loves pride and cruelty.

I hope God keeps blessing and correcting me. I really want to get rid of those awful oak leaves.